To pay or not to pay.. that is the question

[PAWUK]

Ok this has been bugging me for some time now...why do we continue to pay large sums of hard earned cash to buy the latest release when there seems to be some more than adequate freeware aps out there that look like they can do the job.

 

Are we just sticking to what we know ...is it really the best option.

 

This has all come about as we may be getting in a work experience kid in from school who wants to learn 3d, but we don't really have a spare seat for him to work from ... hence my question .

 

If a small company like ours needs to expand then do we spend a fortune on new aps or do we take the gamble and go with something we don't know ...for free . (apart from the down time training)

 

Has anyone had any experience with any of these programmes , I'm thinking Blender, Indigo , kerkythea or maybe others.

 

To demonstrate what I'm ranting about see the links below at the quality of the work they seem to be able to produce

 

 

http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=77

 

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=26&g2_itemId=20732

 

http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/features/

[notamondayfan]

i think free aps are good, but no where near the standard of the highend packages. take 3ds max for example, it isnt just a modelling program (like blender) it has so much more.

also you do have to take into account what other are doing. for example if you intend on using render farms in the future, you'll have to find one that supports your program.

finally, you should look at what people are educated in. i picked up 3ds max fast because theres so much reading (much more than anyother 3d software).

[PAWUK]

But that's the thing as far as I can see Blender isn't just a modelling package , also there's the 2 rendering engines I gave links to .

 

Probably like allot of people I 'picked up max' because its widely used and like you said well supported on the tuts front, just take a look at this site on the number of people willing to help.

 

What I'm trying to get at is when does the cost of using the industry standards, sketchup autocad max vray mental ray etc. make little sense when you can achieve something similar with these 'free aps'.

 

Not saying I'm about to jump to the dark side but it has got me thinking . Can you actually achieve the standards they are showing in a reasonable time frame or are they just blowing smoke.

[AJLynn]

I always found the Blender interface obtuse, though there's no doubt it's a powerful program. It's got animation with all the usual features and a reasonable set of modeling features, and I've seen people getting good results with Yafry and Kerkythea, but not as good as the people who are good at using mental ray or Vray. I bet if you did the math, if you're better and faster at using a program that costs $4k you would find that you'd mak up the $4k in improved productivity over the free stuff.

[John Dollus]

http://www.osalt.com/

 

this website lists many opensource alternatives to the more familiar commercial applications.

I would disagree about them not being close to the highend apps but mainly because it's rather vague what defines an application as 'highend' unless you are talking about the high end of the financial commitment scale

 

 

For example, Artrage is $40 ($25 for the download only version) and has really nice features out of the box which can stand toe to toe with Painter and Photoshop. While not opensource, is pretty darn close to it.

[demo38]

Indigo has some really nice gallery images. Just tried it out with a decent sized model and it crashed every time for me (using one of the Max exporters). I would like to keep an eye on that project though. To be fair, I was adapting a VRay scene (deleting cameras / lights, applying one Indigo material to everything, then running the export to auto-launch in Indigo). Perhaps starting with a clean file it would make a difference.

[SandmanNinja]

I think some of it has to do with Industry Compatibility.

If you have a beautiful portfolio and are applying for a position in a firm, how warm is their invitation if your tools are not from the 'acceptable list'?

[PAWUK]

I think some of it has to do with Industry Compatibility.

If you have a beautiful portfolio and are applying for a position in a firm, how warm is their invitation if your tools are not from the 'acceptable list'?

 

I agree thats one of the main reasons I have pushed to stay with max at work even though my MD has tried to stear us over to artlantis .

 

But the point is if these 'free' programes keep improving how long will it be before the output equals that expected from the higher end programes and taking that into account would or should any studio turn someone away who can produce work on aps that can be downloaded for free potentially saving them thousands.

 

Not to mention all those freelancers who could potentially undercut the bigger studios who stick to the 'acceptable lists'.

[John Dollus]

If you have a beautiful portfolio, I don't care if it was made with Microsoft Paint.

 

Never let the tools dictate the limitations of your art.

[SandmanNinja]

I agree - to a point.

How well would you fit in with their work flow if you don't know how to use their tools?

 

I wouldn't hire a plumber to work on my pipes if he kept trying to use a screwdriver... no matter how pretty his pipes were.

[alias_marks]

I would definitely give blender a shot. I used it for about a year at a smaller outfit because we honestly couldn't afford anything else. It got us off to a good start and now I use 3ds max at a much larger firm, but blender was great, easy, and fast once you got over the initial learning curve (pretty much like any program).

 

The other thing to consider is all the resources you've got with blender. You can always get questions answered fairly quickly over on the blender boards and there are tons of tutorials, free materials, textures, hdris, model repositories specifically for blender. The support side of this is huge, espically when diving into a new application.

 

Couldn't agree more with Mr. Dollus about not letting the tool dictate your art. Blender or any other program is only as good as you make it, IMHO.

 

Good luck,

 

M-

[Nic H]

just get a trial version at work for 30days and tell the kid to learn on a cracked version at home like everyone else!

 

industry standard, problem solved.

[PAWUK]

just get a trial version at work for 30days and tell the kid to learn on a cracked version at home like everyone else!

 

industry standard, problem solved.

 

good point.... on the 30 days download

 

But checking out the other programes put the bee in my bonnet looking at the type of work produced,

 

Somethng else to consider is if these aps get developed further will it effect the big players attitude to pricing ....maybe not..but I can live in hope

[jkletzien]

good artists are good artists, as an empolyer I can offer up that if someone can produce good work than they are gonna get hired and you know it'll be worth your while to train them in the shop's preferred software.

 

That said, the results you're looking at may be great, but I would argue that if you are doing this professionally you'll always want a product that you know will be around, will be upgraded, and will always feature novel things that your clients may desire. Shareware is great, but if there isn't anyone standing behind it whose livelihood and mortgage are dependent on them working on a new version - you're running the risk of eventually being left high and dry.

 

As much as I despise somethings about Autodesk, I know that they are stable, and MAX or an alternative that I can upgrade to will be available for the foreseeable future. That is worth money - maybe not an arm and a leg - but I definitely think having a software partner that has as much to lose as you do if they fall down is a valuable thing.

[shaneis]

...Shareware is great, but if there isn't anyone standing behind it whose livelihood and mortgage are dependent on them working on a new version - you're running the risk of eventually being left high and dry. As much as I despise somethings about Autodesk, I know that they are stable, and MAX or an alternative that I can upgrade to will be available for the foreseeable future. That is worth money - maybe not an arm and a leg - but I definitely think having a software partner that has as much to lose as you do if they fall down is a valuable thing.

 

That is quite true for the most part, though I'll have to say that Blender is an exception to the rule. It is one of the most supported, eagerly developed, community supported pieces of FLOSS out there. There may be less of an opportunity for Blender in an Arch-Viz studio but there is a definite and bright future for it in the Film/ TVC industry. This is purely because it is open-source freeware and this alone allows larger studios to take the source and develop it as they see fit. Film readily uses Maya for it's MEL/ Python capabilities but they are still unable to play with the source as it is owned by Autodesk. Blender will free them from these constraints.

 

The main let-down for Blender at the moment is the rendering engines, Yafray (et al) just can't match chaos group and mentalImages. However, if you consider that the PRMan is extremely transparent and openEXR is, well, open too... Blender certainly does have a future and it's all for free

[Adrian Bold]

Like jkletzien I also am an employer in this field, with much the same philosophy about good artists who send their CV and portfolio to us. The majority of these contenders are 3DS Max based, either trained or self-learnt, sometimes Maya and rarely anything else. Regardless of what their background is, XSI, 3ds, Maya, MS Paint, even Lego - we have to make sure they become accustomed to our pipeline and our preferred platform Maya. The applicants who have prior knowledge of using Maya are favoured yes, but only if their actual Art is up to scratch. This should resolve Sandman's opinion.

 

This may be a little off-topic but IMHO our preferred job applicant is the person who earns a university degree in something unrelated to IT and more specifically Spatial - like Architecture, Engineering, Photography, Cinematography, etc.. and have an absolute passion for 3D, specifically the continual progress of change and application of CGI to make ways of living and doing business in the real world better.

i.e: this way we gather talent and enthusiasm that is born embedded, then the skills are learnt on task.

[mattclinch]

interesting topic.

 

i think max is so intuative and so compatible with autocad (majority industry standard) that it was always destined to become largely the norm.

the available support, third party renderers etc all make it more appealing that a free software.

[AlekseyR]

It all comes down to what you are going to profit from more? I mean downtime in training is not "just" downtime. to tell what it is, multiply the amount of people you're teaching by there hourly rate and then by the time you believe they'll spend learning the software, and then double it coz you probably underestimated there learning ability

 

If that's significantly lower than the price of upgrading then go for it.

 

I personally know that the blender rendering engines are very very slow with GI, so that would be the first reason i wouldn't go for blender.

[SandmanNinja]

I know when I was a Systems Analyst for some big companies, we had to decide on a compiler for everyone. Microsoft or Borland. Borland produced a tighter .EXE and the editor was really nice. I feel it was a technically superior product.

 

We went with Microsoft.

 

Why? We felt they'd be around longer than Borland and that level of support was what we wanted.

 

And I feel that's why so many 'big' shops are Microsoft shops because they want a company that is out to make a profit and justify their actions to their stock holders as opposed to a collective of random individuals with no committment to the product other than 'love'. Love fades. Money writes the rules.

 

So if I had to carry the analogy of compilers to 3D packages, Blender or other freebies might be great for an independent guy, but a shop is going to want a product that is constantly being upgraded and improved.